The Asteroid/Comet Connection's
daily news journal about
asteroids, comets, and meteors

Today's issue status: done

• News briefs – Rosetta news + bits & pieces
• Risk monitoring – NEODyS has removed 2004 MC & JPL has posted 1998 DK36

Cover: When comet C/2004 K3 (LINEAR) was announced on June 3rd, A/CC had an image of it from June 1st ready for that day's “cover,” provided by Robert Hutsebaut, who had deduced that this object, which had been up for confirmation for many days, wasn't just another asteroid. But his observations weren't in the discovery MPEC 2004-L04 and had to be resubmitted, appearing in the first update for this comet, MPEC 2004-L45 nine days later. This image is a composite of 30 20-second exposures, stacked for motion of “8.60" towards 339.8°,” made with a rented 0.25m telescope at New Mexico Skies, operated remotely from Belgium.

Rosetta news:  The Rosetta comet mission has been routinely posting weekly status reports, but the report for 21-28 May was absent, so A/CC made inquiries and today was informed that the report had been prepared but missed being posted. It is now up, dated May 30th. Perhaps the most interesting part is this: “Rosetta has reached perihelion on 24 May at 17:00. Its minimum distance from the Sun was 132.6 million kilometres.”

ESA has an item today, “Multi-generational space science missions,” about how “Space science exploration often requires a long-term view and much patience.”. A mission such as Rosetta spans decades from first planning through preparation, launch, and arrival at the destination, not to mention the years that will be needed to study resulting data.

Bits & pieces:  Nature Science Update has an interesting report today about the first results from the Cassini Phoebe flyby. See more about that.

The New Zealand Herald has an article today, “Meteor alert false alarm.” It tells that “North Shore residents have been reporting suspected meteor sightings for the past four weeks. . .  But Warren Hurley of the Stardome said what people had actually seen was a high-flying aircraft [which with] its vapour trail were illuminated by the morning sun.”

Risk monitoring 25 June

Of three objects with impact solutions and under active observation, only one is reported in the Friday Daily Orbit Update MPEC, and today its last solutions were removed by NEODyS. 2004 MC was reported from McCarthy Observatory in Connecticut yesterday morning and KLENOT in the Czech Republic last night.

The Minor Planet Center Last Observation page is showing that Francisquito Observatory in southern California caught 2004 MS1 this morning.

JPL today posted 1998 DK36 [link|alt] with a low-rated assessment having 24 solutions in the years 2025 to 2100 based on four observations spanning 23.9 hours on 23 and 24 February 1998. Announced then as the first asteroid found with an orbit completely interior to that of Earth, that claim has been considered unproven and the object hopelessly lost, and no official astronomical databases even carried this small object, but now it's back. Yesterday and today's DOUs carry new orbit calculations, with the latest having aphelion at 0.97987 AU.